Dower
by steph801
Summary: The earth is dying and Humans are almost extinct.Food and shelter are hard to come by. Bella has lived all her 18 years on a military base camp, training for a future she doesn't want. Will she ever escape?


I dreamt of him again last night, just like every night for the past week. I almost told Jacob about the dreams when we were alone in the school house basement, but something made me hold back….something I can't explain. Jacob is my best friend not that there are many choices as friends go.

There are only a small group of us teenagers, about twenty. He's like family. in fact if I had a brother I would wish he was like Jake. But he didn't exactly look at me like a sister and we both knew it but pretend to ignore it. We were making plans to leave the compound together. I know I'm using him to get what I want but there is just no other way. I'm too afraid of the alternative. He would do anything for me and I'm the wretch who's taking advantage of that.

He's only leaving because that's what I want, but would a life with him really be so bad? I mean, after all this, after all we've been through, and after all we will have to go through? It's almost a relief to know I'll be with him and that I won't have to go alone.

Maybe it will take a little more time. Maybe someday I could learn to love him the way he's hoping I will. I can see his feeling for me every time he looks at me when we're alone at night planning. We both know we have to be careful when we sneak out. He's afraid that his father will find out and do something drastic and I must admit that even I don't know what would happen if Colonel Black ever discovered what we were up to.

I shudder to think what my own father would say, what he would do. All the work, the countless days and hours it's taken us to get prepared for the launch date, he would have me locked up and he would keep Jacob from me. Jacob, my only friend in this hole of a military base. I told Jake that if they found us we would say we were sneaking out to be together. Of course that was fine with Jake and nothing would please my father more.

My father is the Captain of this mission, and Jacobs's father is leading the military. We're not even expected to fall in love just to start populating our new home immediately. The pressure is just too much, and that's why I…..why we, have to leave.

Dower is a world of such promise and wonder….so many people would die to take my place on the ship. My father tells me I am one of the lucky ones because I will get to see a new world, that my children will get an opportunity to shape their own destiny. I remind him about the previous mission that departed 80 years ago and was lost a year after they landed, but he won't listen to me. With Colonel Black and his soldiers we will be prepared for anything he says. Our technology is too great.

But I can see the doubt in his eyes, the fear that he tries to hide….how could he risk his own daughter's life for this crazy dream of his? My whole life has been in the shadow of this vision, of this relentless chase he's been on. He loves Dower more than his own family, more than me even though he tells me leaving is the only way to keep me safe , ….he's afraid because of what happened to my mother. He was better before she died or so I've heard. Oh, how I wish I could have met her! Maybe if she were still here she would let me live my life the way I want to unlike my father who drags me along behind him in hopes of fulfilling his own dreams.

It thoughts like this that make me long for the night. For the sweet release of sleep where I might actually feel something. I wonder if I will see him again tonight, in my dreams. He pulls at me. I know he's there, in the shadows where I can just see him. Every breath he takes resonating like thunder in my ears. I'm drawn to him with a force like I've never known before.

It's the same every night. We are standing a ways apart facing each other. He just stares at me, the only thing I can make out are his eyes. Eyes like emerald embers burning into my soul. And he raises his arm slowly, reaching for me as if he's asking me to come to him. And as I take my first step forward, the dream ends…And I find myself alone and longing to be dreaming once more.


End file.
